Chatwoot alternative
A Chatwoot alternative you pay for once and get help installing
Chatwoot is the best-known self-hosted live chat, and its community edition is free. ReplaChat is the other road: $299 once for every feature, a lighter server, the WooCommerce basket beside each chat, and a person to help you set it up. Here is how they, tawk.to and Crisp compare, honestly.
The short version
Pick Chatwoot if
- you need WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, SMS or TikTok in the inbox;
- you want an AI agent answering first;
- you sell on Shopify and want orders beside the chat;
- open source and a free core matter most.
Pick ReplaChat if
- you run several shops or sites and want each person to answer only theirs;
- you sell on WooCommerce and want the basket in front of your agent;
- you would rather pay once than per agent, with nothing held back for a paid tier;
- you want help installing it, or want us to run it.
Pick tawk.to if
- free matters more than anything else;
- you are happy for the chats to live on tawk.to’s cloud;
- one site and the tawk.to branding are fine.
What three agents cost for a year
Each company’s own pricing page, read on 9 October 2026. Chatwoot and Crisp publish monthly prices only, so a year is twelve of them.
| Option | Where chats live | A year, three agents | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chatwoot Community, self-hosted | Your server | $0 | 4 to 8 GB of memory; roles, branding and AI are paid |
| Chatwoot self-hosted + Premium | Your server | $684 | $19 per agent a month |
| Chatwoot Cloud Business | Chatwoot’s cloud | $1,404 | $39 per agent a month |
| tawk.to | tawk.to’s cloud only | $0 | branding off from $348 a year per site |
| Crisp Mini | Crisp’s cloud | $540 | 4 seats, “We run on Crisp” stays |
| Crisp Essentials | Crisp’s cloud | $1,140 | 10 seats, branding stays |
| ReplaChat | Your server | $429 first year | then about $130 a year of server |
ReplaChat’s first year is the $299 licence plus about $130 of server; after that it is the server, and an optional $49 a year if you want updates. Self-hosted Chatwoot is free to run, but its server is bigger: 4 to 8 GB of memory against ReplaChat’s 2 GB.
Chatwoot and ReplaChat, side by side
| Chatwoot (self-hosted) | ReplaChat | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free core; $19 or $99 per agent a month for paid features | $299 once, everything included |
| Licence | MIT core plus a commercial enterprise folder | Commercial, complete source included |
| Channels | Website, email, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, Line, SMS, TikTok, API | Website, email, Telegram, API |
| AI | Captain AI on paid tiers | None: answers come from your people |
| Shop data | Shopify orders (native); no native WooCommerce | WooCommerce basket via the WordPress plugin; orders via API, Zapier or Make |
| Several websites | Many inboxes; agents limited to their inboxes | Many shops, each with its own bubble, hours and help centre; agents ticked per shop |
| Renaming it | Custom branding on paid tiers | Product name set in one setting; the agency licence lets you run it as your own service |
| Server | Postgres, Redis, app and worker; 4 to 8 GB of memory | Postgres, app and Caddy; 2 cores, 2 GB of memory and 20 GB of disk |
| Install | Linux script, Docker, Kubernetes, cloud one-clicks | One command, HTTPS automatic, nightly backups set up for you |
| Help | Community, or paid support | 30 days of setup support; or we install it for $798, or host it for $79 a month |
Where ReplaChat is different
Several shops, each with its own face
Every shop in ReplaChat has its own bubble, colours, logo, greeting, opening hours, away message and help centre. Each person is ticked for the shops they answer and never sees the others, not in the inbox, not in search, not in the reports. Chats are handed out to whoever is free within their shops.
The basket in front of your agent
The WordPress plugin is built for each shop with its key inside, and sends the WooCommerce basket with every message: each item, quantity and price, and the total. Logged-in customers arrive with their name and email, checked with a signature.
No paid tier to unlock
Roles, reports, saved replies, rules, invites, the help centre, Zapier and Make, webhooks and the API are all in the one licence. So is renaming the product, which is what an agency needs to run it as its own service.
Small to run
One command installs it on a server with 2 cores, 2 GB of memory and 20 GB of disk, fetches the HTTPS certificate and sets up nightly backups that keep fourteen days.
Team and access in ReplaChat: each person ticked for the shops they may answer.
What it deliberately isn’t
Not open source
You get the full source and may change it for your own use, but it is a paid licence, not a community project.
Not omnichannel
No WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger or SMS for customers. Website chat, email and Telegram share the inbox.
Not AI-first
No bot answers before a person does. See chatbot vs live chat for why.
No app store app yet
Agents add the inbox to their phone’s home screen from the browser; there is no App Store or Play Store listing.
Questions about Chatwoot and the alternatives
Is Chatwoot free?
The self-hosted Community Edition is free. Chatwoot’s Premium tier, at $19 per agent a month, adds custom roles, custom branding and its Captain AI; the Enterprise tier, at $99 per agent a month, adds SSO and SLA policies. Chatwoot Cloud starts with a free Hacker plan (up to 2 agents and 500 conversations a month, live chat only), then $19, $39 and $99 per agent a month. Prices from chatwoot.com on 9 October 2026.
Is Chatwoot open source?
Mostly. Its core is MIT-licensed, but the enterprise folder in the same repository is under a separate commercial licence that needs a paid subscription for production use. That is where the paid features live.
Is ReplaChat open source?
No. ReplaChat is commercial software that comes with its complete source code: you can read and change it for your own use, but not publish or resell it. It costs $299 once, with every feature included and no tiers.
Can tawk.to be self-hosted?
No. tawk.to is free with unlimited agents, but it runs only on its own cloud; its FAQ says there is no on-premise option. Removing its branding costs $29 a month billed yearly, or $39 month to month, for each website.
How much server does ReplaChat need compared with Chatwoot?
ReplaChat’s install guide asks for 2 cores, 2 GB of memory and 20 GB of disk: a server of about €5–15 a month. Chatwoot runs Postgres, Redis, the app and a background worker, and its own docs ask for 4 to 8 GB of memory.
When is Chatwoot the better choice?
When you need WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger or SMS in the same inbox, an AI agent, or Shopify orders beside the chat, or when free and open source matters more than setup help. ReplaChat does none of those.
Own your live chat.
$299 once. Every shop, every person, one inbox. Nobody charges you per agent again.
The demo is read-only, with its logins on the homepage. Questions first? hello@replachat.com, or the chat bubble in the corner, which is ReplaChat itself.